Container holders are used to reduce the rate of heat transfer between a container and a hand gripping the container holder. Container holders also may be used to increase the grippability of the container. Additionally, container holders may be used to advertise a product by including advertising material printed on an outer surface of the container holder.
Conventional container holders typically are manufactured with arcuate top and bottom edges such that when the holder is fastened in an assembled configuration, the holder forms a tapered sleeve that may be positioned about a tapered container. Such arcuate top and bottom edges lead to inefficient manufacturing in that a large portion of a sheet of material, from which the holders are cut, remains unused and numerous cuts must be made in the sheet to form the holder. In addition, the arcuate top and bottom edges lead to nonuniform spacing of the container holders within the sheet of material such that advertising material printed on the container holders is not predictably centered thereon.
Conventional container holders may be permanently fastened in the assembled configuration by adhesive placed along overlapping end edges. These permanently assembled container holders are expensive to ship and store in that they require a relatively large volume of space. Releasably fastenable container holders may be assembled by interlocking mating webs, the webs created by oppositely extending cuts that sever the top and bottom edges, respectively, of the holder. The mating web configuration provides a "tear drop" shaped cross section when the holder is assembled and provides outwardly extending tabs that may become torn and that may snag other holders upon stacking. Accordingly, to stack such a holder, the holder must be pressed into a shape having a circular cross section while simultaneously preventing tearing or snagging of the webs.